POTUS Nelson Rockefeller

We all know Rocky, really really really wanted to be President...He practically ran for a decade but could never clinch the nomination. However, the Closest he came to finally ascending to the presidency when in a three week time span President Gerald Ford faced two assasination attempts. So what if Fromme or More were able to kill the President Ford? What would a Rockefeller presidency be like? Would he decide to run for his own term? Could he win a nomination battle between Ronald Reagan(Or does he follow Goldwater's advice in that the nation doesn't want 3 presidents in one year and wait till '80?) Could he win out against Carter? What might be some other effects of a successful Ford Assassination?
 
I agree that Rockefeller wanted to be President.

I think that runnng against him in 1976 primaries would be tricky. It could easily look destablizing and even unpatriotic.

I think that Reagan would probably lose a nomination fight.

I think that Rockefeller would probably beat Carter. In OTL Ford nearly did so. I think that a man who had not pardoned Nixon and who is facing a nation traumatized by a murder by a lefty would likely win.

The murder attempts against Ford of course happened after January 20 1975. That meant that Rockefeller could and probably would have tried to run in 1980.


Now the economy will, I suspect, be in pretty much the state it was on OTL.

If (as I suspect would have happened ) Reagan had run in the 1976 primaries he would find it much harder to challenge Rockefeller.


I kind of wonder whether someone from the right would have run in the General Election.
 
In my opinion, he'd stave off Reagan and manage to keep the Social Liberal wing of the GOP (Dewey, Nixon, Ford, that sort of group) strong, and stop it from dying out as it did during the Ford years and subsequent "Reagan Revolution", and thus also curtail the rise of Conservatism and Neoconservatism in America; even if just by his presence as President to kick the legs out from under the Conservative Reagan in 1980 (either by having someone in the Liberal wing of the GOP under Rockefeller take on Reagan strongly, or by allowing a Democrat such as Carter of Ted Kennedy to run successfully against an opposition leadership).

I suspect he would have been very supportive of New Deal policies, keeping the New Deal coalition alive, and would have been hard on drugs.

BTW, Rockefeller died in 1979, so he would probably not have lived much longer in an ATL, and thus the 1980 election would have been open.
 
Hmm...Thinking about Rocky's potential running mate in 1976; Im not sure if Rocky personally cared for Dole(I know Bush Sr. couldn't stand him)...I can definatley see him trying to coherse Reagan into becoming his Vice President, but I doubt he would take the gig(Eventhough it would be an amazing yet shaky ticket). So he needs someone that conservative enough to placate the base, but young enough to shore up any questions about his age...Rocky was 68 at the time of the election.

My guess would lean either toward Sen. Howard Baker of Tenn, former Governor John Connally of Tx, Rep. Phill Crane of Illlinois are all strong choices to shore up what we would now call the base. I think the most likely out of all of them would be a Rockefeller/Tennesse ticket, how do you all think that would turn out electorally?
 
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